The Biography

Lies led to further lies, dividing like cells, scattering in a multitude of directions, so delicately constructed and subtly detailed, based not simply on words alone but the nuances of his finely tuned spoken delivery. It would take a superhuman act of memory to recall every detail of the elaborate world he had constructed, peopled with fictitious characters who themselves had multiple shifting identities, in some cases appropriated from the dead.

Many of those he deluded had spent years maintaining immensely detailed records, data, statistics, log books, files in the hope of discovering something truly significant that might lie somehere in the midst of of it all, like an artefact sealed in a tomb. They would give up the ghost in abject failure, broken and demoralised by years of futile searches. Yet it seems he was never aiming for perfection, nor held no interest in consistency, carefully maintaining a flawless construct. He would deliberately, wilfully, embellish his lies with outrageous immediate truths, daring his adversaries to discover the full shock of his intrigue. How he would delight in their humbling, their self hatred and humiliation.

Amidst the delicately constructed city of his lies were entire broken factories, weed strewn abandoned yards, rusty railings, crumbling alleyways. Or a ruined house in a windswept empty field miles from anywhere. He, as a creator of immensely complex yet malfunctioning worlds, had put them there, then relished the decay.

He preferred their imperfections, their ruined corners of intrigue. It was here, in these rain sodden neglected broken ruins rather than elite distinguished realms of power and conceit where his enemies would discover clues which would potentially lead to his undoing. He would deliberately plant trails in the hope they would walk these lonely weed strewn alleyways, follow the graffiti trail of abandon through a flaking broken door up cold stone steps to find him waiting in the shadows, sitting in the middle of an abandoned room, by a window, at a desk, at a silent telephone the cord of which was severed.

He might be close to death but how quickly and skilfully he could turn the tables, assembling and reassembling himself enjoying subtly manipulating the fate of anyone who dared to question his integrity to the point where they would rather throw themselves in front of a train than continue in life having doubted him.

***

I sat in the corner of the library, laughing to myself at the ridiculous situation but all the same I could feel the sweat on my brow, the urgent intensity of my pulse. I had no direction to my research, noone to guide me, no touchstones, no sense of certainty. I began to suspect some elaborate hoax or intrigue. How could I possibly piece together a biography with such a paucity of information? I envisaged myself at the end of my life sitting in the same corner of the library, staring fixedly down the thin vacant shadows of the vaulting shelves Already I was slipping into daydreams of walking along a vivid wintry beach. A few yellowing heavily edited papers and a single fading photo slipped from my fingers.

The Writer

I read his stories in a university magazine. Now years later I can't even remember the titles. What I do recall was an unnerving humour, unpredictably odd characters emerging from a kind of mist and plot lines which took you up badly illuminated stairways and passages. Occasionally there might be a tiny window through which you could catch a glimpse of a world outside. I recall a small faraway town on a hill. You felt you could explore this world on your own terms if only you could see. There was something exasperating about his stories as if they were leading to a punchline which never came. What was the writer's name? Peter. That much I remember. There was a time I tried to find him online but he seemed to have disappeared. He did have such a common name he would be difficult to trace. Thirty years ago I left a message in his college pigeonhole, suggesting a time and place to meet. I didn't know what to expect but waited in my room in the hall of residence. I heard footsteps on the stairs but then silence. I wasn't sure if it was him at all but whoever it was never got as far as my door. A couple of years ago I went back to the university town and it struck me to visit the library to look up the story. The magazine had been removed from the shelves and following enquiries I discovered no archives were in existence. I still look for him infrequently on the internet searching his name with half remembered phrases I recall from his stories.

The Hat

From what they could deduce, he awoke one morning to discover everyone around him was speaking in a language he couldn't understand. Of course it destroyed his career. Words became at first unbearable to him, then fearful. He turned to reading in panic, scanning his eyes along the stems of words studying the physical construction of symbols, their maze like passageways of edges and curves. He fixed his mind with force as if willing the blank pieces of an inverted jigsaw to overturn to reveal colour, shape, form no matter how pretty, banal or deep the significance.
Simple conversations began to fill him with dread. He could barely maintain composure, retreating
into solitude. But even his thoughts were becoming elusive like tiny fish slipping through his fingers. At first he was convinced this disturbance in his life would pass. It was crushing to his career. He could no longer engage in simple conversation or read a newspaper let alone fathom the subtle microsignals of those who inhabited his world with an intention to deceive.

What little we know of him at this stage of his life, indeed, any other for that matter, is limited. All that exists today is his hat which remains neatly placed in the centre of his desk. The drawers of which are completely empty, of anything which might shed more light on this mystery. Did he attempt to immerse himself in research to find a solution to his disturbance? There are rumours of him holding his hands up to his ears in the faces of colleagues and howling like an animal.

Suitcase of Limbs

I unlock my suitcase. It's a large receptacle yet surprisingly light considering it's full of carefully arranged prosthetic limbs. My eyes fix on the artificial head which looks very different to my own yet somehow familiar. A long thin face, with dark features and black tidily cropped hair. The eyes are closed as if meditating on some intense purpose. I lift it out of the case studying the intricately sculpted forms, marvelling at the porous texture on the base of the neck which appears to allow blood flow. Would such features be a suitable substitute for my own? The thought of momentary blindness, deafness, speechlessness, seizes me with fear. For now I return the head to the suitcase I will carry with me for days to come and apply the artificial legs. I find I can run effortlessly, as if gliding down the stairs out into city streets and beyond into the autumnal freshness of the country. I see a work colleague ahead, running along a leaf strewn lane. Gliding past him, waving hello, I grip the handle of my suitcase no longer in any doubt about the promise of its contents.

SOS

Chapter 3: SOS

I make my way to the hotel, up the narrow lanes of the town, open the door of my room. No sign of my companions. It's empty of furniture and my luggage. There on the wooden floorboards, on a bed of stones is a clay replica of Africa. In the centre is the monumental stump of a tree, prehistoric in form yet easily the size of the Congo. Did such a tree exist? It's been modelled as if cleanly sliced through; aeons of growth are rendered in the delicately textured clay. I lean down and poke at the surface of the land with my finger. It's still damp and falls away beneath my touch revealing tiny insects which disappear into cracks between the stones.I pick up my phone but the battery is dead. By the window is a plant. I pull it from the pot revealing, neon roots. I plug the plant by its luminous tendrils into the mains socket of the wall. It doesn't allow me to phone or send text messages but controls on the stalk allow for Morse code. Is it still in use? I begin to type SOS.

Growing Horses from Seeds

A winter sunset breeze carries me through low dark farms down mud lanes and puddled dirt tracks. I’m amazed at my speed. I windmill my arms and legs wildly to stand upright. I’m face to face with the glowering face of the man who calls himself the Farmer.

A pungent stench of cowdung and urine fills the air. I dig my hand into the pocket of my shabby jacket and hand him the two precious seeds. They’re small, almost shell like yet priceless. I can’t recall how they came to be in my possession but I’m guarded and wary. Can I trust him? The big fingers of the Farmer contrast with his delicate manner as he studies the seeds in quiet awe, gazing at their intricate texture. He quietly reassures me he will grow me two horses from the seeds. We both know it is an illegal practice and should he be discovered he will be punished severely.

I nod in assent, complicit, and turn, lifted by the delicate suspense of the twilight which carries me back down the lane into the black expanse of the moors. In my quiet elationI'm impervious to the chill of the sky.

I return to meet the Farmer. To my horror, half of the flesh of his face appears torn away, exposing the teeth of his skull. He has in his heavily accented anger been “rumbled” by a local judge and made to confess his crime. One of the seeds, he says in an appalled tone “had taken root and been destroyed”. However, unknown to anyone a horse has been fully grown from the second seed he smuggled to a nearby farm. He points along a lane winding along a windswept hill in the cracked green light. I turn to begin my journey.

The Cranefly Tenant

The low evening sun spills across the sky like wine and vast cornfield tides shimmer in the twilight. I stand on the brow of the hill exhilerated by the silver suspension of the breeze and feel little fatigue despite reaching the end of my journey. Now I can just make out a small house from the road shrouded in the undulating silhouttes of trees. I'm certain this is the place.

A window light is just visible. I hadn't anticipated inhabitants. My pulse quickens with anxiety. I should continue to follow the road into the valley but instead negotiate a dark narrow tree lined path towards the light, kicking stones as my footsteps seem to march ahead of me. I marvel momentarily at my displaced footfall and quicken my pace, following it through the unlocked entrance through cramped corridors up a staircase to a wooden door.

Is anyone here? I enter the very candlelit room I had seen from the road. It's empty. I'm immediately struck by a sense of profound peace. This humble well cared for wooden room with its little necklace draped mirror, floor level bed and delicate single window could withold blasts of starfire and the destructive chill of space.

Carefully sealing the door shut behind me I look to the window overlooking cornfields seething in shadow, the moonlit sky a limitless force of vacancy. The vast nightwinds flying low over oceans of night had come for me but here I'm standing secure behind a fragile weather beaten pane of glass defying them.

They whisper: Leave this place. Stay and you will meet your downfall. Yet I turn away; the tiny womblike warmth of this candlelit room seems an infinitely appealing prospect.

I'm suddenly drowsy, so unburden my small ruksac and recline on the soft floor level bedding in the centre of the room to contemplate my surroundings. Considering its small size I'm surprised by so many apparently locked doors of varying sizes.

A cranefly springs erratically around my head in quiet vibrations. Perhaps it's protesting against my uninvited entrance, announcing its status as sole tenant of this room. I watch it flail in trembling spirals, a miniature helicopter on stilts, listen to the mathematical oscillations of its logic. Until, like the sprung mechanism of an impossibly delicate watch, it spins a coiled trajectory and lands gracefully on the window, as if taunting the night, spreading its limbs like a sacrifice.